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Birth through age 25

Know the stage. Nail the gift.

Every age has its own work to do: a baby learning that hidden things still exist, a four-year-old building a pretend world, a teenager building an identity. When you know what your grandchild is working on, the right toy is obvious, and the time you spend together lands.

Each stage below gives you the plain-language version of what is happening, a few things from the research you will not find on other sites, and a short list of toys and gifts chosen by the organizations that test toys with real children.

7
stages, birth to 25

Pick your grandchild’s age

  1. 0–12 monthsInfants
  2. 1–2 yearsToddlers
  3. 3–4 yearsPreschool
  4. 5–7 yearsEarly Elementary
  5. 8–11 yearsPre-Teens
  6. 12–17 yearsTeens
  7. 18–25 yearsYoung Adults

Choose a stage

What is happening, and what to give

What your grandchild is working on, and nearly 180 toys and gifts matched to it.

  • Independently tested. Almost every toy on these pages has won a recent award from an organization that tests toys with children and teens. Confirmed awards are named.
  • Open-ended. If the toy does the playing, the child watches. These are the ones a child rebuilds into something new next week.
  • Matched to the stage. At two it is cause and effect. At nine it is being good at something.

How old is your grandchild?

Under 1 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25
A grandmother on the floor reaching for a spoon her baby grandchild has dropped from the high chair, with a stacking ring toy, a board book and a rattle nearby.

10 award-winning toys

The Discovery Year

Infants · 0–12 months

Reaching, grabbing, first smiles, first words, and the stranger-shy phase. Toys that reward kicking, mouthing, and face-to-face play.

DevelopmentDid you know?The toys

See the toys →
A toddler marching off in an oversized sun hat with a set of keys while her grandmother follows with open arms, a shape-sorter cube and a pull-along duck on the floor.

21 award-winning toys

The “Me Do It!” Years

Toddlers · 1–2 years

Walking, talking, helping, and “me do it.” Toys for stacking, sorting, climbing, and the first pretend play.

DevelopmentDid you know?The toys

See the toys →
A preschooler crouched in a garden examining an earthworm through a magnifying glass while his grandfather scratches his head, an open insect book beside them.

27 award-winning toys

The “But Why?” Years

Preschool · 3–4 years

Imagination takes off, and so do the questions. Toys for dress-up, building, early math, and playing the story with you.

DevelopmentDid you know?The toys

See the toys →
A gap-toothed boy throwing his hands up mid-protest over a board game while his grandfather hides a hand of cards and smiles.

26 award-winning toys

The “That’s Not Fair!” Years

Early Elementary · 5–7 years

Rules, turns, jokes, and wanting to be good at things. Games and builds for skill, strategy, and reading.

DevelopmentDid you know?The toys

See the toys →
A pre-teen presenting a drawing of an octopus to his delighted grandmother, with a telescope, a stack of books and a bin of building bricks around them.

14 award-winning toys

The “Did You Know?” Years

Pre-Teens · 8–11 years

An hour of focus, real projects, more privacy, and the first body changes. Kits, puzzles, and strategy games.

DevelopmentDid you know?The toys

See the toys →
A teenager and his grandmother sharing a bowl of popcorn on the sofa, him holding his phone, a guitar and a skateboard propped at either end.

24 gift ideas

The Late-Night Text Years

Teens · 12–17 years

Identity, big ideas, friends first. Games to play for keeps and gifts that are theirs.

DevelopmentDid you know?The gifts

See the gifts →
A young adult panicking at a pot boiling over while his grandfather laughs and points, a cookbook open and a basket of laundry on the counter.

57 gift ideas

The Launch Years

Young Adults · 18–25 years

New cities, new jobs, a lot of travel, and still figuring it out. Gifts for the move, the apartment, and the trip home.

DevelopmentDid you know?The gifts

See the gifts →
Every stage at a glance
Stage What they are working on What to give On the list
Infants
0–12 months		 Learning that you still exist when they cannot see you Toys that reward kicking, mouthing, and face-to-face play 10 award-winning toys
Toddlers
1–2 years		 Becoming a separate person, and saying so Stacking, sorting, climbing, and the first pretend play 21 award-winning toys
Preschool
3–4 years		 Why, wonder, pretend, and the first real friendships Dress-up, building, early math, and playing the story with you 27 award-winning toys
Early Elementary
5–7 years		 Being good at something, and fairness Games and builds for skill, strategy, and reading 26 award-winning toys
Pre-Teens
8–11 years		 Real projects, real expertise, and wanting privacy Kits, puzzles, and strategy games with a skill to climb 14 award-winning toys
Teens
12–17 years		 Identity, abstract thinking, and friends first Games to play for keeps, and gifts that are unmistakably theirs 24 gift ideas
Young Adults
18–25 years		 Running a household and deciding who they are Gifts for the move, the apartment, and the trip home 57 gift ideas

Grandparent gift questions, answered →

How to read these pages

Checkpoints, not deadlines

Where the ages come from

The milestone ages on these pages come from the CDC’s “Learn the Signs. Act Early.” program and other national sources. A milestone age is when most children, three out of four, can already do something. It is not the average and not a deadline.

Five things we track at every age

  • Body and movement: growth, strength, coordination
  • Senses: seeing, hearing, touch (biggest in babyhood)
  • Thinking: learning, problem-solving, attention, memory
  • Words: understanding and talking
  • Feelings and people: relationships, emotions, independence

If something worries you

Grandparents often notice a change first, because they see the child less often than parents do. The two signals worth a conversation: a child has not reached a milestone most children that age have, or a child has lost a skill they used to have. Raise it gently with the parents, as a teammate, and leave the diagnosing to the pediatrician.

Did you know? Why grandparents exist at all

Humans are one of very few species in which females routinely live decades past their child-bearing years. The leading explanation, the “grandmother hypothesis,” is that grandmothers improved their grandchildren’s survival enough to make a long life worth evolving. Old church records back it up: in Finland, children aged 2 to 5 were about 30% more likely to survive if their grandmother lived nearby. In Quebec, the effect shrank with every 100 kilometers of distance and disappeared beyond about 350. Showing up has always been the whole job.

Sources: Chapman · Engelhardt

Did you know? Three cautions that apply at every age

Premature babies may reach milestones later and are often tracked on an adjusted timeline. Neurodivergent children (autism, ADHD, and other variations) may follow different timelines and styles without that saying anything about how much they can love, learn, or bond. And a child losing a skill they already had, at any age, is worth a prompt conversation with the parents and pediatrician.

Sources: Mayo Clinic · CDC

Behind the list

How these toys were chosen

We did not pick these toys off a bestseller list. Almost every toy on these pages has won a recent award from an organization that tests toys with children and teens. Confirmed awards are named. Here is who they are and how they decide.

Good Housekeeping Institute

Engineers, product analysts, and child psychologists test toys in the GH labs, then send them home with more than 350 kid and parent testers. They check safety (drop tests, pinch points, small parts), durability, clear instructions, and whether kids keep coming back to play.

The Toy Association, Toy of the Year

The toy industry’s top honor. Retail buyers, journalists, academics, and toy designers judge innovation, design, and play value, and the public gets a vote too.

ASTRA Play Awards

Hundreds of independent neighborhood toy-store owners, early-education teachers, and play specialists. They look for open-ended play, imagination, screen-free engagement, and the kind of quality that turns a toy into an heirloom.

Shop TODAY Best Toy Awards

Editors at TODAY narrow the field, then real kids play-test the finalists and the kids’ favorites win.

NAPPA (National Parenting Product Awards)

Early-childhood educators and pediatric specialists paired with family home testers. They judge how well a toy lines up with real developmental milestones, from tummy time and pincer grip to logic and teen maker skills.

For ages 18 to 25

Toy awards stop at the teen years, so the young-adult gifts come mostly from published gift guides at NBC Select and Grown & Flown, with a few award-winning games for the younger end of the range.

Two things we looked for

Open-ended play. The judges asked whether a toy invites a child to play with it again and again in new ways, or whether it is a toy a child plays with once or twice and forgets. The toys here are the first kind.

Kid-tested. Many of these toys were tested by actual children, not just grown-ups with clipboards. One of the ways that works: put a room full of toys in front of a group of kids and watch which ones they go back to. Not every organization used every method, but taken together, these toys were chosen by experts and by kids who played with them.

A few older favorites carry The National Parenting Center’s Seal of Approval. That program closed in 2024, so we say so and do not claim a year for it.

A note from Alison

Where this list is headed

Alison Richardson, MS, founder of The Gran Life

I am just starting that journey, so right now you will see only a few picks marked Gran Life Recommended. The rest earned their place by winning an award, or by being named in the gift guides above. As I test more, that gold badge will show up more often.

Gran Life Recommended — Alison has had this one in her own hands: used it with her grandchildren, or ordered and inspected it herself.

Gran Life Community Recommended — grandparents in The Gran Life Community have used this one and vouch for it.

Why shop through our links? If a toy is exactly right, wonderful. Buying through our link costs you nothing extra and helps keep our free services going, like the Milestone Message texts. And if a toy is close but not quite it, click the brand name on the Amazon page. It takes you straight to that maker’s store, where you may find the one you were looking for.

grandparent with purpose

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Some links on this page are affiliate links. If you buy through them, The Gran Life earns a small commission at no extra cost to you.

The research behind this page

Sources and references

The stage pages each carry their own full source list. This page comes from The Gran Life’s developmental reference guide, which draws on the sources below. Milestone ages are from the CDC and mark what most children (75% or more) can do by that age. Links open the original source.